


The Least He Can Say

by Emjen_Enla



Series: Prompted Works [17]
Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Blood, Cross-Posted on Tumblr, Declan Lynch Loves His Brothers, Gen, Hospitalization, Pre-Book 1: The Raven Boys, Suicide Attempt, Waiting Rooms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-12
Updated: 2019-08-12
Packaged: 2020-08-20 02:47:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20220526
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emjen_Enla/pseuds/Emjen_Enla
Summary: Gansey and Declan in a hospital waiting room after Ronan's supposed suicide attempt. Written for Gansey Week day one "Out of Time."





	The Least He Can Say

**Author's Note:**

> Not sure how well this answers the prompt, but here’s a fic with my two favorite TRC characters interacting!
> 
> In the books there’s no indication of whether Declan knows Ronan didn’t actually try to commit suicide. This fic operates under the assumption that if he did figure out what actually happened, there was a period of time right afterwards when he thought it was a legitimate suicide attempt.

There is blood on Gansey’s boat shoes. There is also blood soaked through the knees and legs of his Egyptian cotton pajama pants and splattering the light blue polo shirt he’d pulled on before leaving Monmouth. He’d rinsed his hands with a hose before driving to the hospital, but there’s still blood under his fingernails. There might be blood in his hair and on his face, but he has been avoiding places with mirrors so he doesn’t have to know for sure. All the blood is drying now, fading from brilliant red to dull brown. Gansey had been hoping that would make it easier to pretend it wasn’t blood, but it turns out that’s not possible. He really wishes it was possible to pretend he isn’t covered in blood.

He tries not to think about where the blood came from. He tries not to think about Ronan lying in a pool of his own blood with his wrists cut open. Gansey feels like he missed something. He’d known Ronan was struggling--it was really impossible not to know--but he hadn’t thought something like this would happen. Gansey has died, and he generally feels like Glendower made a mistake giving him his life back. Gansey knows much more about death than most boys his age do; shouldn’t he have known his best friend was suicidal?

Gansey comes back to himself in a chair in the waiting room. He realizes he’s been rocking back and forth and forces himself to stop. He is a Gansey, he is supposed to always appear to have things well in hand. He can be shattered about Ronan as much as he wants, as long as no one can tell. He looks around the waiting room. The only other person is the guy at the desk who is either watching a sitcom on his computer or falling asleep, perhaps both. No one has seen Gansey’s lapse in control.

He chews on his tongue while he tries to get everything together. Any minute now a doctor might come out of those swinging doors with important information for him, and he needs to be ready to handle it. He doesn’t know what to do. What do you do when your best friend tries to commit suicide? Gansey doesn’t know. He’s scared. He’s scared and he wants Ronan to be okay and he doesn’t know how to handle any of this.

He’s so caught up in his own panic that he almost doesn’t realize when someone else comes into the waiting room. He looks up at the last minute and sees Ronan as he was just a couple months ago when Niall Lynch was still. His heart stops and for a moment he thinks he’s seeing Ronan’s ghost, going off somewhere that Gansey can’t follow him. Panic tightens in his chest. No, Ronan can’t die. He can’t.

“Gansey,” the figure says. “How is he?” And Gansey realizes it’s Declan.

Gansey has never seen the oldest Lynch brother anything other than completely put together. Declan is not put together now. He was wearing sweatpants and hoodie with his school Oxfords. He has rings under his eyes and looks groggy. His hair was an unstyled mess of dark curls. That was why Gansey had mistaken him for Ronan. A couple weeks ago Ronan had shaved his head, but before that he’d had a head full of dark curls. Declan’s hair was always so perfectly styled Gansey hadn’t realized the older Lynch brothers had the same hair.

“Are the doctors with him?” Declan asks.

“Yes,” Gansey says. He rattles off the information the doctors gave him the last time they came out to update him. “I haven’t heard anything in a while,” he finishes. “I don’t know how he is.”

“Well, Matthew was alright when I left Aglionby,” Declan says. “That bodes well.”

“What?” Gansey asks, wondering if Declan has lost track of what brother is in danger.

For a second Declan looks surprised, like he just realized he said something he shouldn’t have. He rubs his eyes. “Nothing, don’t worry about it.”

Declan wanders away to harass the guy at the desk who jerks awake with wide, guilty eyes when Declan leans across the counter to tap his shoulder. Gansey goes back to worrying and trying not to look as terrified as he actually is.

After several minutes Declan comes back looking frustrated. “He doesn’t know his head from a hole in the ground,” he growls. “I should-” he visibly restrains himself. He runs a hand along the back of his neck, staring at the floor for a minute, before straightening up again. “I’m going to call Matthew,” he says and turns away, pulling his phone out of his sweatpants pocket.

“Okay…” Gansey says. He isn’t sure why Declan hadn’t brought Matthew along when he left the Aglionby dorms if he was just going to call him, but he figures asking wouldn’t be a good idea.

“Hello, Matty?” Declan says into the phone. “Hi, are you okay?” There’s a pause while Matthew responds. “No,” Declan says. “I just wanted to make sure you were okay. If you start feeling weird, you’ll call me won’t you?...Thank you...I’ll talk to you later, Matty.” he hangs up and turns back to Gansey, rubbing the back of his neck again.

“You didn’t tell him,” Gansey says before he thinks better of it.

“I don’t know how,” Declan says. Gansey doesn’t say anything to that either. He’s facing the same problem with Adam. He hasn’t called the other boy even though it’s been hours. He tells himself it's because he doesn’t want to risk making Adam’s father angry, but he’s also avoiding having to tell Adam what happened. Adam’s going to be angry when he finds out Gansey didn’t call him right away, but Gansey doesn’t know what to say.

Regardless of when he tells Adam, he probably should call Noah and tell him what little he knows. The other boy vanished shortly after leading Gansey to Ronan, and Gansey was too busy calling 911 to wonder where he’d gone. Gansey pulls his phone out. There’s blood smeared across the back of the case. He shivers and unlocks the device only to realize he doesn’t have Noah’s phone number. That’s odd. He doesn’t understand why he wouldn’t have gotten Noah’s number when the other boy moved into Monmouth. He’ll have to make sure to get the number when all this is over.

Declan drops down into the chair next to him, still rubbing the back of his neck. They sit in silence for several minutes. Declan fidgets restlessly, fingers tapping on his knees. “Do you think I should pray?” He asks suddenly. 

Gansey is taken by surprise. He hasn’t believed in God since he died at age ten and was rescued by a Welsh King not an omniscient being. Declan doesn’t strike him as someone who would believe in God, but then again Ronan doesn’t either and Ronan is one of the most devout people Gansey has ever met. Maybe Declan is the same way. “I guess,” he says, unsure of what the right response is. “If you think it will help.”

“I don’t,” Declan says haltingly, like he’s admitting something. “Think it would help, but maybe I should do it anyway.”

Gansey isn’t sure what to say to that. 

Declan does not pray, but he does go back to fidgeting. After several more minutes of this he throws himself back to his feet, paces back and forth a few times then says, “I’m going to call Matthew again.”

“You just called him half an hour ago,” Gansey points out. “He’s sleeping.”

Declan just looks at him for a long while, then he sinks into the chair next to Gansey again and leans back, staring up at the ceiling. Gansey feels like he should say something comforting, but he doesn’t know what would be appropriate. Instead they just sit in silence.

“Thank you,” Declan says after what feels like a very long time, “for calling me.”

Gansey feels guilty. Declan is Ronan’s legal guardian so he should be Ronan’s emergency contact. However, since Niall Lynch died, it seems that Ronan got that changed and made Gansey his emergency contact. It had taken Gansey far too long to realize that no one had called the oldest Lynch to tell him what was happening.

Gansey doesn’t know what to say. In this moment it’s obvious that, no matter how dickish he is to Ronan’s face, Declan truly cares about his younger brother. What do you say to someone whose brother doesn’t even want them to know if they get hurt? “It’s the least I could do,” Gansey finally says.

It’s the least he can say.


End file.
